UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Global Dialogue on AI Governance

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I want to express my sincere gratitude to Secretary General Antonio Guterres and to PGA Annelina Birbach for their trust and for their support and to the Government of Switzerland for hosting us.

Huge thanks to fellow Co Chair Ambassador Lopez of El Salvador, whose partnership has been invaluable.

I also recognise the great role of the Joint Secretariat coordinated by ITU and UNESCO in helping to transform the mandate entrusted to us by Member States into the dialogue we are opening now.

AI is already affecting every country, regardless of its level of technological development.

The conversation on its governance must therefore be inclusive, including every region, every level of development and every relevant stakeholder.

No one should be left behind as we make better informed decisions when more voices are heard.

Our responsibility as Coach Here's has been to create an inclusive, universal platform where diverse perspectives can be heard, where scientific knowledge can be shared, where political and technological deliberations can advance, and where trust and common understanding can grow.

Throughout our global consultations, we've heard that the opportunities AI offer, and there are numerous, can only be fully realised if this technology is safe, grounded in the international law and human rights, and if people themselves can shape it to be confident that AI serves them.

Lesson learnt from my own country, Estonia, is the same.

Digital tools, including AI, can improve People's Daily lives tremendously.

When human centred, trustworthy and supported by strong public institutions, technology alone is never enough.

Distinguished participants all.

Over the next two days we will explore what AI governance means in practise.

Objective is not to eliminate differences, but to better understand them, identify areas of convergence, collect best practises and strengthen the foundations for future international cooperation.

I very much hope that dialogue can spark a sort of San Francisco moment for AI, and that one day AI would become a part of a public good benefiting all of humanity.

With that, I wish us all a productive global dialogue on AI governments.

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Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear friends, Artificial intelligence is advancing at runaway speed.

A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections, and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone, including the people building it can keep up an experiment.

Experiment is being run on our own societies without a plan and without consent.

And that is not sustainable and it is not acceptable.

AI is already transforming our worlds.

The question is whether we will shape this transformation together or let it shape us.

And today that question is an answer right here at this global dialogue on AI governance.

For the first time, every country as a seat on the table and we have a shared base of evidence.

This morning the Co chairs of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence will present their first report.

40 leading experts from every region and the cross disciplines serving in their personal capacity, independent of any government, any company, any institution.

The science carries 3 warnings.

The first is about speed.

The Internet took 15 years to reach a billion people.

AI got there in 2 and these systems are no longer tools awaiting instruction.

They are writing codes, acting online, and making choices with less and less human oversight.

Our institutions were built to govern machines that follow commands.

They are not ready for machines that decide, and some lines, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed.

The second warning is about power.

The computing power, the data and the talent behind the most advanced systems are concentrated in a handful of companies and in a handful of countries.

Most nations, including many developing countries, have had no say in decisions that will shape their futures.

The longer you hate, the harder that concentration sets.

When power imbalances are hardwired into technology, inequality becomes part of the quote.

The third wording is about truth.

A machine enabled lie can now persuade as effectively as the truth, and authentic evidence can be dismissed as fake, further eroding the integrity of our information ecosystem and undermining trust.

A society that cannot agree on what is real cannot defend itself in other ways.

More and more people are tempted to trust the machine and hope for the best.

There is a name for that vibe, coding.

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Don't look too closely, seems to work good enough and vibe vibe coding can do wonders.

But we cannot vibe code the truth.

We cannot vibe code the future of humanity.

So, dear friends, the warnings are real, but so is the potential.

Because the same technology built with purpose is already changing lives for good.

A mother in a rural clinic as their scan rarely in minutes and their cancer caught in time.

A child keeps learning beyond the classroom with a tutor that never tyres.

A small old farmer plants the same with the same forecasts as the biggest Agri business and brings the harvest home.

And all of this is happening today, often in places.

The headline is very rich, and it points to something profound.

For all of human history, expertise has been held by too few people in too few places, at too high a price.

Penicillin took decades to reach the villages that needed it most.

Electricity took a century and is still arriving.

Artificial intelligence does not have to wait.

Used well and shared widely, AI could compress decades of development into years.

It could become the great equaliser of the 21st century.

But no future builds itself.

And so the choice before us is not between face in AI or fear of it.

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In my first address to the opening of the General Assembly in 2017, I said the following and I quote Artificial intelligence is a game changer that can boost development and transform lives in spectacular fashion.

But it may also have a dramatic impact on labour markets and indeed on global security and the very fabric of societies.

Back then, only two other leaders even uttered the world's artificial intelligence.

But today it sits at the heart of all common future.

And that did not happen by accident.

For years, the event system from ITU to UNESCO and beyond has been hard at work.

In 2023, my High Level Advisory Board body on AI called for the world to govern it together.

In 2024, the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact gave us the mandate.

This morning, the scientific panel, you'll give us the evidence and the dialogue must now give the world direction and it will be completed later this week here in Geneva by the AI for Good summit and its initiatives.

This is all part of an integrated UN effort to ensure AI serves people everywhere.

So let me name 4 priorities for the rule they had.

First, safety.

When countries align on how to test systems, measure risk and assigned responsibility, safety travels with the technology.

When they do not, the patchwork of incompatible rules raises costs, divides the world, and protects no one.

We need common baselines for frontier systems, common methods to evaluate and verify risks, and common resolve that systems with global reach must meet standards worthy of global trust.

Nowhere does safety matter more than for those least able to protect themselves, our children.

We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe.

We test every toy.

Yet the AI has reached our children, their learning, their friendships, their most private questions before anyone asked what it would do to them.

And we are already seeing the cost.

Children deceived by machines posing as friends.

Children steered towards self harm, Children violated by abuse, images made at the touch of a button.

No child should be a Guinea pig for unregulated AI.

Building on the work of the United Nations, Member States and others, I am today calling for an AI Child Safety Pledge with three simple rules for any system a child can reach.

Prove it is safe.

No company should deploy an AI system accessible to children without child specific safety testing and independent oversight.

0 Tolerance for sexual abuse.

No company should allow its AI to generate sexual images of children and every company must detect, report and remove them and never leave a child in crisis alone.

When a child shows signs of distress, the system must stop and connect them to real human support.

When a child is harmed, the answer must never be the algorithm did it.

Second, red lines.

Human rights are not negotiable.

AI must never strip away dignity or entrenched discrimination.

And in every high stakes decision, in justice, in else care, in policing, machines can inform, but humans must decide and answer.

3rd capacity.

Last year, private investment in AI infrastructure approached half a trillion dollars.

Public investment in AI capacity for developing countries is, by comparison a rounding error.

We cannot allow the digital divide to harden into an AI divide and the AI divide to become a development gap, a security gap and a sovereignty gap.

More than 20 Member states have already responded to my invitation and nominated centres to AUN supported global network for exchange and cooperation on AI capacity building.

The network will build on existing initiatives, sharing knowledge, promoting cooperation and expanding access to capacity building, particularly for developing countries.

And I will shortly submit to the General Assembly my recommendations for a global fund for AI to build skills, data and affordable computing power everywhere.

My message to all Member States is clear, support the network, back the funds.

Leverage the capacities of the UN system with resources, partnerships and expertise, and force transparency.

AI may feel intangible, but its footprint is not.

Data centres already consume more electricity than most countries.

By 20-30 they could use more electricity than all but five nations and enough water to meet the needs of all 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for an entire year.

And too often the communities hosting this infrastructure are asked to carry the burden without the information they need or the benefits they deserve.

That is why I have two weeks ago put forward the AI environmental transparency initiatives, calling on every measure AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full footprint of its systems, carbon, water and land, and to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 20-30.

A few companies have taken first steps.

I invite all to go much further.

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The global dialogue is about civilian AI, but AI does not respect that line.

The same models and chips have moved into the battlefields.

My main concern is with little autonomous weapon systems.

Let us call them what they are, killer robots, machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life without human control and judgement that is morally repugnant.

It is politically unacceptable and it must be banned by international law.

States are already at discussion table but has let us not wait for atrocity to act.

Some decisions must remain forever human, none more than taking a human life Excellencies.

Some might claim that governance is the enemy of innovation.

But innovation needs guard rails.

The technologies we trust most, in aviation, in medicine, in nuclear energy and beyond, earn that trust because we acted to all their makers to account.

If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed.

If AI is to be trusted, those who build it must be accountable.

If AI is to be global, it must be fair.

And if AI is to serve the future, it must not consume the future.

That will require governments to act with urgency, companies to accept responsibility equal to their power, scientists to keep bringing evidence into the light, and this dialogue to become the place where global participation leads to global action.

Excellencies, we may be the last generation able to set the terms on which humanity and machines coexist.

The door is still open, but it will not stay open long.

Today in Geneva, 193 nations are stepping through it together.

I thank the Dialogue Co chairs for their commitment, leadership and tireless efforts over the past year.

And they also thank ITU and UNESCO for Co coordinating the Joint Secretariat supporting this dialogue, working closely with UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and partners across the United Nations system.

Let this meeting be remembered as the moment governance began to catch up with the technology.

And then this dialogue reconvenes in New York next year.

Let us be able to say that the work began here is making AI safer, fairer, more accessible and more accessible and more ethical.

This is the measure of our task to help build a future of AI by humanity, with humanity, and for all humanity.

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Thank you, Mr Secretary General, for your leadership, for your powerful messages and for underscoring the importance of international cooperation in ensuring that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.

We are honoured to welcome Her Excellency Annelina Berbock, President of the General Assembly.

O's leadership has been instrumental in convening us all today.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear stakeholders, first of all my sincere thanks to our Co chairs, Miss Lopez and Mr Tamsar for bringing us together today.

What we are discussing these days sounded 10 years ago like science fiction, and today it's almost outdated.

Right now, developers are integrating AI into software development process itself, automatically generating, translating and optimising code.

Increasingly, artificial intelligence is learning to interact with the physical world through what are known as world models.

A technological revolution is unfolding before our very eyes at lightning speed and with view through parallels.

We've seen revolutionary innovations before, but the key difference is that those innovations unfolded over time.

Today, we do not have that luxury.

Aviation changed the world, yet its fundamental purpose has remained the same.

The steam engine disrupted the jobs of factory workers, but it did so over years.

Even the splitting of the atom, which signalled the promise of an energy future for all, was purposefully slowed because of the profound dangers of nuclear weapons.

Never before, never before has the pace and scale of change been so blinding, and never has it been more difficult for us to understand and adapt to that change.

Because if we are frank, who among us in this room, especially, how many policy makers, aside from the handful of experts, really understand the depth and scale of what is happening with eye model architecture, autonomous agents, or the implications of quantum computing?

Therefore, from the moment the General Assembly adopted the Pact for the Future and it's Global Digital Compact in September 2024, it signals that the potential and peril of AI were too significant, too far reaching and too consequential to be left to a few.

That is precisely why this global dialogue matches.

Because something with such power, with such profound implications for our economies, our social systems, our defence, and therefore our peace and security, but especially for even our homes, our food, our children's bedrooms, can only be meaningfully and safely managed together.

And the UN was built for moments like this.

Even if the founders of the United Nations who drafted this charter 81 years ago knew nothing about AI, they didn't even have a computer yet they recognised the evolving nature of humanity's challenges.

And the charter committed us.

And I quote to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic and social, cultural or humanitarian character together, because something with such a power needs a global platform.

It needs the United Nations.

So to anyone who's questioning whether the UN is acting within its mandate, the answer is right here in the Charter of the United Nations.

AI presents an opportunity and a challenge that the United Nations is uniquely built to address.

Like 81 years ago, the world must come together.

And luckily, at least most of the times, we are human beings capable of learning.

And by now we know that we need not only a few countries, but all countries to face global problems.

We need all stakeholders, all governments, all tech companies, and especially all civil societies and citizens, not only to avoid the dangers and pitfalls, but also to harness the potential, like the founders of the unintended for all, leaving no one behind.

Because this is too big for any government alone, and as I said before, too complex.

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It needs all of you who are part of it, not only as scientific, not only as company owners, as engineers and experts, but it needs you as fathers and mothers too, because our children are asking us to act together.

It was the teenager Ian Miko who said during the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda just a couple of months ago at the General Assembly hall, I quote today.

The poison travels faster than before, hiding in screens, mask in pixels and likes hate speech has found new corridors to roam, whispering old lies to a new generation.

But we, the youth, other philtre and the chill refuse to let our platforms become battlefields.

This means us.

It means us as adults, as governments, as policy makers, as businesses to address the sinisters users of AI such as deep fakes which disproportionately target women and girls, with a reported 99% of deep fakes being sexual in nature and 96% targeting women and girls.

This is no coincidence.

This is systematic.

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This is about pushing back human rights and women rights and therefore we do have a common responsibility to change it yet.

And this is a good news and the Secretary General underlined it.

The potential of AI is a boom for the SD GS as well.

We have seen for example, in Bangladesh where families receive early warnings of floods and storms from AI powered system delivered instantly to their smartphones.

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We've seen in Kenya where farmers received detailed maps showing where and when to plant seeds to maximise their harvest.

And now imagine if we use this power together.

Imagine the UN leverage for these tools.

Imagine UNICEF reaching children in crisis without personalised learning alone.

Imagine the World Health Organisation detecting outbreaks before they become pandemics.

Imagine during this technological revolution that this time no country is left behind.

The establishment of the independent international scientific pendulum and artificial intelligence is therefore a major milestone, for the first time delivering parity across genders and regions while drawing from expertise from all sectors.

And it's a big accomplishment of the Secretary General to push that through since, as he mentioned, 2017.

While this should simply be common sense, yet we all know we live in the world as it is today, and therefore this won't be easy.

Therefore, it's up on you, on every one of us, to seize this moment of being Better Together or, as Franklin D Roosevelt said more than 80 years ago, also in a crucial moment for the world.

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Power must be linked, responsibility and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good.

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Thank you so much, Madam President, for highlighting the importance of inclusive and effective multilateral cooperation in shaping our shared digital future.

It is now my honour to invite the Co coordinators of the Joint Secretariat of this AI Dialogue, Doreen Bogdan Martin, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union and Khaled Elnani, Director General of FNESCO, ITU Secretary General, you have the floor.

Secretary general, President of the General Assembly.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply honoured to welcome you on behalf of the ITU to the first ever UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

The Internet began arriving in homes and businesses in the early 1990s, but it would take an entire decade, an entire decade before stakeholders around the globe would gather here in Geneva at the UN mandated World Summit on the Information Society to discuss how to make such a transformative technology, people centred, inclusive and development oriented.

This time, ladies and gentlemen, I think we can be proud that the United Nations has moved much faster in just three years since generative AI went mainstream.

We are ready.

We are ready to shape its trajectory together during this Geneva Digital Week, a week that includes this dialogue informed by the Independent Scientific Panel, the AI for Good Global Summit and the Wisses Forum.

And here I also want to appreciate the very generous support of our host country, Switzerland.

This week, the UN system, governments, companies, researchers, the technical community and civil society will discuss how to put humanity at the core of another transformative technology, perhaps the most consequential yet.

Together with UNESCO, the ITU has proudly coordinated the Joint Secretariat for this dialogue and continues to mobilise UN wide expertise through the Interagency Working Group on AI.

Excellencies Pope Leos Magnifica Humenitas mentions the word dialogue 34 * 34 times, recognising that while many ideological and practical differences exist among us as people, amid our diverse interest and sometimes frequent disagreements, it is always possible to engage in dialogue to establish a set of basic agreements that enable the creation of a shared vision upon which everyone can move forward together.

I believe that is what we are here to do.

It's what the Secretary General's vision calls us to do, driven by the Co Chair's steadfast leadership, and what the common good challenges us to do for the benefit of all people.

ITU will be here to support this dialogue on artificial intelligence, as we have for every technology that has come before AI since 1865.

And we stand ready to support humanities cooperation on every technology that will come after.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Secretary General Bogner Martin, for your continued work in building international corporation and for helping to convene the global AI community around practical solutions and shared objectives.

It is now a great pleasure to invite Mr Khalid El Anani, Director General, UNESCO, to take the floor.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear partners and friends, it's a great honour to join you today for the opening of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, for which UNESCO and ITU are serving at the Secretariat, working in strong collaboration with Audit.

As more governments adopt AI strategies and more institutions recognise the need of ethical, safe and trustworthy AIA, significant gap persists between ambition and implementation.

This is where UNESCO has a distinctive role to play.

First, UNESCO provides a common normative foundation through it's 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, the world's first global standard in this field.

UNESCO offers member state a framework to ensure that AI advances in line with human rights, sustainability and inclusion.

But norms alone are not enough to turn the principles into action.

UNESCO works with more than 80 countries to strengthen legal frameworks, institutional capacities, governance arrangements, skills and accountability mechanism.

At the same time, we are investing in the people who will shape and implement AI governance.

To date, more than 50,000 civil servant and the judicial actors across 192 countries have benefit from UNESCO supported training programmes and tools.

And as AI becomes increasingly integrated into the lives of children and the young people worldwide, UNESCO recognise the need for a global coalition to protect and promote the rights and send ready to contribute actively to this efforts.

In this regard, UNESCO is launching A collective reflection on a new global normative instrument to better safeguard children and young people in the age of AI and digital technologies, ensuring their rights and well-being remain at the heart of the digital transformation.

Excellences, ladies and gentlemen, AI governance is a shared responsibility.

No signal is.

No single institution can meet this challenge alone.

We need a one UN approach as stated by Mr Secretary General.

By combining our mandates, expertise and the global networks and by engaging governments, the private sector, academia and civil society, we can help bridge capacity gaps and ensure that they are serve the public good.

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Thank you, Director General Elnani for emphasising the critical importance of ensuring that AI advances are grounded in shared values, knowledge and international cooperation.

It is now my pleasure to invite Mr Amandeep Sikh Jio, United Nations Under Secretary General and a Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies.

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Good morning distinguished Co chairs.

Thank you for your leadership.

Thank you for your commitment to an inclusive and meaningful dialogue.

And this is reflected in the exceptional turn out today.

More than 4000 have registered to be in this room and we have more than 170 countries represented in this room and they are joined by scientists.

The panel Co chairs Joshua Benju and Maria Resa are here by entrepreneurs, civil society, international organisations, the unique Geneva ecosystems and voices from around the world.

I just want to emphasise one thing, inclusion is not a one shot, it's not a box to be ticked.

We will continue to work to strengthen inclusiveness in AI governance.

AI is too consequential to be shaped by a few.

We need a conversation that is global, inclusive and grounded in evidence.

And this should be backed by capacity, without which dialogues are monologues and science is just abstract.

The second point I want to emphasise today is that this dialogue is the result of years of hard work, perhaps 10 years of hard work led by the Secretary General across the UN system.

It's taken a lot of sacrifice, a lot of political will and commitment to create a universal space to discuss AI governance through the High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, the Secretary General's Road Map on digital cooperation, the Global Digital Compact, the report of the high Level advisory body on AI and the work on the modalities for these mechanism.

So we are starting and build to build on that legacy.

The third and last point I will make is that dialogue is again not a one shot.

It has to be continued.

It cannot be just one or two iterations.

This dialogue has to be more inclusive, has to continue to build in an iterative fashion the connection between the practise and the norms that we all know are brought together at the United Nations.

So we look forward to hosting the second round of this dialogue in New York in May, back-to-back with the STI Forum, possibly on 3rd and 4th May.

And I would like to thank my dear colleagues Doreen Bogdan Martin and Directional Khalid El Annani for coordinating the work of the Joint Secretariat for this inaugural dialogue.

As my office prepares to take on the coordination for next year, we look forward to continuing to work with them and their teams in support of the next.

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Global Dialogue on AI Governance - Opening session